


Work Experience

by exchequered (kesterstjohn)



Category: Eye Candy (TV)
Genre: Banter, Disguise, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 04:58:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15187298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kesterstjohn/pseuds/exchequered
Summary: "This place is sooooo basic,” Shanice told him. “I wanted to go to the FBI recruitment day, but Mr Black said to start small.”“He did, huh?” Tommy glared at her. That stung, being unfavourably compared to the FBI. Could be worse, he supposed. Kid might’ve said CIA.





	Work Experience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts).



Chaos reigned.

Tommy gave in to the urge to curl his hands over his face and rocked forward. His head almost—almost!—made contact with the wall. Concussion would be great right about now. It would add to the knots in his shoulders and the tension creeping up his spine, and if he was really lucky, it’d blow up into a full-scale migraine and he could go home sick.

If only Yeager hadn’t already phoned in with the same excuse.

Smart guy, Yeager.

“Mister! Are you _crying_?”

It was amazing how a child’s voice could reach that pitch. Somewhere between a dog-whistle and an air raid siren, guaranteed to make any sane adult in the vicinity recoil. Tommy wished he could vanish through the wall. Instead, he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and faced his ten-year-old interlocutor.

The kid was wearing a Fortnite t-shirt and a dubious expression. Behind thick lenses, dark eyes narrowed. He rubbed his nose into the crook of his arm, leaving a slimy trail. Tommy didn’t know what was worse, the almost-Dab or the bogey streak.

“Cops don’t cry,” the kid said. “Not even when they’re blown up. They defeat their foes and dance on their bodies.”

Yeah, video games had a lot to answer for. Tommy scrubbed a hand through his hair and wondered how best to respond. Before he could do so, the kid grabbed onto one of his classmates, an angelic looking girl in pink dungarees. “Shanice, this cop is sad. Like, crying sad.”

Shanice pursed her lips. “Probably ‘cos I hacked his ass right out the gate.”

Tommy focused on her. “You did what?”

Hands on hips, the girl tilted her head, flipping her braids over one shoulder. “The test you set. It’s too easy. I hacked you right down to level four. Coulda done more, too, but Mr Black chased me off.” She gave him a pitying look, then slid her gaze to the Fortnite kid. “I’d be crying too if my security system was so basic.”

“I’m not— I wasn’t—” Tommy gave up. The important thing wasn’t that some kid took home a weird impression of the Cyber Crimes Unit, it was finding that one special child—or several of them—who demonstrated the potential to one day be a world-class coder. For that lucky child, the CCU would provide a full scholarship, plus living expenses, to the college of their choice to study advanced computing. In return, the newly-graduated student would work for the CCU for a minimum of four years.

It was a great idea on paper. Variations of the scheme had been successful in any number of academic fields, from medicine to engineering. When top brass had floated the possibility, Shaw had been all over it like ham on rye. The police had long had problems with outreach programs; hearts and minds were simply not being won the way the Commissioner intended. But if they could hook the kids in at a young age, their futures could be moulded. These programs produced the stars of the future. They produced model citizens. Win-win, as far as the city was concerned.

That was the thinking, anyway. To Tommy, it seemed more like manipulation. Kids should be kids, even if they did spend ninety percent of their time playing video games.

Shanice was staring at him, half bored, half curious, twisting a braid between her fingers. Fortnite Kid had jumped onto Yeager’s chair and was spinning it round and round, making incoherent noises.

Tommy lifted his gaze and looked around the room. The noise was immense. The office smelled of spilled soda and additive-riddled chips and candy. Kids were everywhere, climbing on furniture and riffling through desks and cabinets that hadn’t been secured. One child was happily sitting on the floor folding paper aeroplanes, which he then launched at the window. Three kids had surrounded the vending machine and had worked out the sequence in which to rock it in order to get free snacks. It had taken Tommy six months to figure that out, and these brats had done it in less than ten minutes.

The door to Shaw’s office remained closed. The blinds were down. She’d gone to take ‘an important call’ half an hour ago, literally three minutes after the class arrived. She hadn’t even had time to finish her welcome speech. Tommy would have been amused if he hadn’t been left in the firing line.

“This place is sooooo basic,” Shanice told him. “I wanted to go to the FBI recruitment day, but Mr Black said to start small.”

“He did, huh?” Tommy glared at her. That stung, being unfavourably compared to the FBI. Could be worse, he supposed. Kid might’ve said CIA.

He directed her back to her work station. They’d trained for this. If they encountered any genius kids, they had measures in place to really stretch their skills. “Okay, Shanice, since you hacked level four, I’m gonna ask you to take part in an extra special test…”

She gave him a withering look. “You don’t need to talk like I’m an _infant_.”

Tommy bit his tongue. He’d rather face a posse of armed gunmen than deal with a kid. Angling his shoulder so his body shielded the screen for a moment, he typed in some commands and brought up pages of spreadsheets of encrypted data. “We’d like you to write a code that streamlines these individual operations.”

Shanice cracked her knuckles. “Into one operation?”

“Sure. Let’s see what you can do.” Tommy smiled in what he hoped was an encouraging manner and stepped back. The kid didn’t need to know that she was tackling the requisitions orders for the whole of the NYPD and its specialist units.

“Mister! I’m bored!” Fortnite Kid had managed to break the top half of Yeager’s chair. “Mister! Can we go to the firing range? Can I shoot a real gun? Freeze, sucker! Bang-bang! You’re dead!”

Kids swarmed him, all shouting, “Guns! Guns! I got the pump, baby! I got a hole in one! Dancin’ on yo body!”

Tommy put a hand on his weapon, just to check it was still there. He wouldn’t put it past any of these kids to be light-fingered. “Have you finished your tasks?”

“Boring! Easy! Let’s go shoot stuff!”

He was rapidly losing control of the situation. Maybe if he fired off a warning shot. That would bring Shaw running. Of course, it would also mean losing his badge, but right now, unemployment seemed like a good option.

“Children, please. Quit bothering the nice police officer.” An authoritative voice broke into the din. Almost immediately, the kids stopped their clamouring and stared at their teacher.

“That’s better. Gray, Eli, you’ve only breached to level two. See if you can do better. Keysha, I believe you were working on some GCHQ meta-puzzles? Rembrandt, I’ve set you up with some traffic-cam footage, as you requested. Laney and Michael, since you excel at stats, I’d like you to take a look at the project Officer McGuire is running.”

He clapped his hands in dismissal, and the kids scattered to do his bidding.

“Impressive.” Tommy held out his hand. “I’m Tommy Calligan.”

“Charlie Black.” The teacher was hot, in a cute, understated way. Tall and a bit gangly, limbs seemingly uncoordinated and yet he moved with precision. Curly hair an indeterminate shade between brown and blond, the kind of colour that varied depending on the light. Behind wire-rimmed glasses, bright blue eyes that held a curious, amused expression.

“Have you been a teacher for long?”

A small smile. “Not really.”

“Huh. You must be naturally gifted, then. Those kids jumped right to it.”

The smile deepened, went from modest to charming. “It’s all a question of the correct motivation, Detective Calligan.”

Tommy chuckled. “Isn’t it always. And, uh, you can call me Tommy.”

“Any child should jump at the opportunity to study the inner workings of New York’s finest,” Charlie continued as if he hadn’t heard the invitation. “The prospect of winning the scholarship is simply the icing on the cake. If I do my job correctly, a whole new world will be opened up to these children.”

“Raising them to be good citizens. It’s laudable.”

Charlie’s gaze lowered, lashes sweeping down. “Indeed.” He looked up again, his eyes gleaming. “I won’t pretend it’s easy, guiding these children towards the future. But it is rewarding.”

“I bet.” Tommy looked at Shanice, absorbed in the spreadsheets. Fortnite Kid and his friend were discussing the best way to hack the level three protocols, and Keysha had arranged her screen split four ways as she attempted to solve the GCHQ puzzles. “I’m gonna be honest with you, Charlie, these are by far the smartest class of kids we’ve seen. Your school must really push hard on computing skills.”

The teacher’s expression was bashful, a cute ‘aw shucks’ reaction to an honest compliment. “It is something our little lyceum is celebrated for amongst parents who seek assurances that their children will gain the best possible education.”

“That’s great.” Tommy wished he’d paid attention to the email yesterday that had given details about the school. He’d read so many since the start of the Work Experience scheme, the information had blurred into one big mass. But there’d been something about this school, beyond that it was a private lyceum. Something to do with its name. Something foreign-sounding.

“Atramors,” Charlie said with a smile, as if he could read Tommy’s thoughts. “We’re very proud of our various programs. You should come down and take a tour sometime. Do you have children, Detective?”

“No. To the last question, I mean.” Tommy grinned and ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe I’ll take a look at your school, though.”

Charlie tilted his head, the gesture somehow familiar. “Oh, my. Are we flirting, Detective?”

He hadn’t intended to, but since he’d been called on it, why not? Tommy moved closer, breathing in the scent of the other man’s body. “Is that a problem?”

“Not for me. But it could be for you.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Because you have so many chaperons?”

“I don’t run a boarding school. My evenings are my own.” The glint in Charlie’s eyes and the smirk curving his lips were positively indecent.

“Great. Well. We should…” Tommy made a pointless gesture.

“Absolutely.”

It wasn’t often that Tommy found himself tongue-tied, but this was one of those instances. He was saved from making any more inane comments by Shaw striding out of her office. She moved amongst the children offering praise and asking questions, and if her smile looked a little too forced to be genuine, at least she was pulling her weight now.

A blush running over the back of his neck, Tommy turned to check on Shanice’s progress. He could feel Charlie’s gaze on him, and it stirred a thrill of secret arousal. Would it be too crass to ask for his number? For a date? Probably, in front of these kids. Better to wait. He had the name of the school. He’d call their switchboard tomorrow, when things were quieter, and ask for Charlie Black.

He glanced over. Charlie stood beside Keysha’s work station, listening to her explanations. As if aware of Tommy’s regard, Charlie lifted his head. Their gazes met and held, and then Charlie smiled, mysterious and amused.

Tommy smiled back. He liked a man who could laugh.

*

When he called the number for Atramors Lyceum the next day, there was no response. The line had been disconnected, the telecoms company told him. He googled the name of the school, and the website was gone. He called up the CCTV for the street on which the lyceum was located, and the building stood empty, with a _For Lease_ sign out front.

A few days ago, according to the CCU officers who’d run the standard background check on the school, Atramors Lyceum had been a thriving and well-respected educational establishment with a roster of around one hundred students drawn from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds.

Now it had all gone. Vanished completely. As if it had never existed.

Someone had gone to a lot of effort.

Tommy had the nasty suspicion he knew who.

He paged back to the search engine and typed in ‘atramors’. The highest-ranked hits detailed the latest album of a doom metal group. Turned out it wasn’t one word, but two. _Atra Mors_. Medieval Latin for ‘Black Death’.

As if thought summoned deed, an email from an unknown sender popped into his inbox. Tommy clicked on it, tension and disappointment and something else churning in his stomach. As soon as he saw the embedded video, he reached for his earbuds and plugged them in.

Then he hit the play button.

The video showed a shadowed room, but not dark enough that Tommy couldn’t recognise it as a classroom. Bubonic sat behind a desk with print-outs of test papers in front of him, a red pen neatly aligned to the right-hand margins. A crisp green apple was placed close to his elbow.

The black leather plague mask dipped its beak in greeting, offering a flash of blue eyes to the camera. “Hello, Detective. I would apologise for my little deception, but I couldn’t resist giving the children the opportunity of legitimate all-areas access to the CCU network. You really do spoil me, you know.”

Beneath the mask, a smile hovered. “I could tell you about the areas of weakness my pupils discovered, but I’ll let you and your colleagues find them for yourselves. But it’s not all bad news, Detective Calligan. My students patched a number of leaks for you. It seems Homeland is particularly interested in the work undertaken by New York’s finest, but I doubt they wish to protect and serve, as you do. Naturally my students blocked this illegal access. Of course, they also added their own lines of code so they could keep an eye on you. Think of it as a kind of virtual game of chess. At the moment you’re in check, but there’s a number of ways to fight free. Will the game end in a mate?” Bubonic chuckled, a rich sound. “I’m afraid I can’t say.”

Tommy closed his eyes for a heartbeat. It would cost a fortune to overhaul the computer system. Shaw would go ballistic. There must be a way they could turn this to their advantage. Hack the hackers. There had to be something they could do. Lindy would know. If only he knew how to contact her…

He looked back at the screen just as Bubonic tilted his head. That gesture—no wonder it was so damn familiar. Tommy ground his teeth.

“Oh, and Tommy… I’m sorry we never got to have that date you wanted to ask me on. Perhaps next time we meet. Because we will, Detective. I guarantee you that.”

The video came to an end. The email erased itself from his inbox.

Tommy lowered his head and banged it against his desk.


End file.
